Public Opinion on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

The Pentagon on Tuesday released its long-awaited report on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the policy that allows gay men and women to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation quiet. The report, the result of a nine-month study, said that repealing the law would present a low risk to military effectiveness. It also found that 70 percent of service members believe that the impact of repealing the law would be positive, mixed or of no consequence at all.

But how does the rest of America feel about the 17-year-old policy?

Public opinion on the service of gay men and lesbians in the military falls into three categories. The first holds that they should be allowed to serve openly. The second position — held by proponents of “don’t ask, don’t tell” – holds that gay men and lesbians should be allowed to serve in the military as long as they don’t disclose their sexual orientation. And the final position holds that they should not be allowed to serve in the military at all. For shorthand, we can call these positions the permissive, the restrictive and the prohibitive.

To measure public opinion on the service of gay men and lesbians in the military, pollsters typically rely on one of two questions. One type of question asks about allowing gay men and lesbians to openly serve in the military (e.g., “Do you favor or oppose permitting people who are openly gay or lesbian to serve in the military?” CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll, November). This wording differentiates the permissive position from the other two. It tells us how many people support open service, but among nonsupporters, it doesn’t tell us how many favor an outright ban or how many support service by gay men and lesbians who do not disclose their orientation.

The second type of question asks about allowing gay men and lesbians to serve without reference to doing so openly (e.g., “Do you favor or oppose allowing gay men and lesbians to serve in the military?” CBS News Poll, October). This wording differentiates the prohibitive position from the other two. Among those who favor allowing gay men and lesbians to serve, though, it doesn’t tell use how many support allowing them to do so openly, and how many support allowing them to do so only if they do not disclose their sexual orientation.

Since the Clinton administration implemented “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 1993, a series of ABC News/Washington Post polls has asked these two questions simultaneously. By comparing results from the ABC News/Washington Post polls, we can evaluate the permissive, restrictive and prohibitive positions simultaneously. (Also, since the survey questions were asked simultaneously on two separate samples, they avoid potential bias from order effects.)

In the chart below, the red series plots results from the question about open service in the military. In 1993, 44 percent of Americans approved of service by gays and lesbians who publicly disclosed their sexual orientation; by 2008, the percentage had risen to 75 percent. This rise by more than 30 percentage points is remarkable, especially compared with trends on other civil rights issues for gay Americans. We can think of this as a trend in support of the permissive attitude of open service.

The blue series plots results from the question about service by gay men and lesbians who do not disclose their sexual orientation. Support for this position rose by 15 percentage points in the same period, to 78 percent, from 63 percent.

And the area above the blue line represents the percentage of Americans who believe gay men and lesbians should not be allowed to serve in the military. Since 1993, support for the prohibitive position has fallen. When “don’t ask” was implemented, nearly 40 percent of Americans supported the prohibitive position, according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll; by 2008, support for the prohibitive position had dropped to 22 percent.

What’s most interesting about this plot, though, is the narrowing of the gap between the permissive and restrictive position. This gap is the percentage of Americans who believe gay men and lesbians should only be allowed to serve if they don’t reveal their sexual orientation. In other words, it’s the percentage of Americans who support the status quo. The gap between the permissive and restrictive positions offers an unobtrusive measure of support for the policy position behind “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

From 1993 to 2008, support for the idea that gay men and lesbians should only be allowed to serve if they conceal their identity shrank considerably. In 1993, 19 percent of Americans supported this position; by 2008, only 3 percent of Americans supported this position.

By 2010, support for this position rose slightly (to 8 percent). However, this shift was fueled entirely by Americans moving from the prohibitive position to the restrictive one. From 2008 to 2010, 5 percent of Americans moved from the position that gay men and lesbians should not be allowed to serve in the military to the position that gay men and lesbians should be allowed to serve if they conceal their sexual orientation.

Together, these trends reveal an important shift in attitudes on the service of gay men and lesbians in the military. When the policy was established, none of the three positions had majority support among Americans. Forty-four percent supported open service, 37 opposed any service, and 19 percent supported allowing gay men and lesbians to serve only if they did not reveal their sexual orientation. Today, one position has emerged as the clear preference of the majority of Americans. Seventy-five percent of Americans support open service, 17 oppose any service, and only 8 percent support the compromise position of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

In 1993, “don’t ask, don’t tell” offered a compromise for a public deeply divided on the issue of gay men and lesbians serving the military. Today, though, that compromise position – the status quo, enshrined in the policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” – would seem to hold very little support among the American public.